BBC Horizon Documentary

Some of you have contacted me about last week’s programme on Clean Eating so I thought I would take a moment to answer some of your questions. Firstly, I...

Some of you have contacted me about last week’s programme on Clean Eating so I thought I would take a moment to answer some of your questions.

Firstly, I generally don’t refer to anything I do as Clean Eating. I just call it healthy eating, and I believe we should all have a balanced diet. This is the same view as the guidelines published by the NHS which recommend that we should all eat a “wide variety of foods, in the right proportions”.

I also believe that following a mostly plant based diet can have a positive impact on general wellbeing and the environment. From my own experience, this means that eating more vegetables, good grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, some dairy produce and less processed food is a good thing.

I am not a scientist, nutritionist or doctor and I have never claimed to be. I create tasty wholesome recipes and I teach people to cook them from scratch. Any nutritional advice in my books was written by a qualified Nutritional therapist accredited by the governing board of BANT and the articles on my website are written by experts in their field, not by me.

When I first became interested in healthy eating to find a solution to my health problems I did a lot of research, and I read a lot of books. One of those books was written by a man called Robert Young, who was an early pioneer of an extreme alkaline approach to eating. While I agreed with some of his early observations, I have never met him or had any contact with him. He did not see my book before it was published, nor was I a student of his. His approach was a tiny part of what formed Honestly Healthy.

My first introduction to alkaline was by an Ayurvedic doctor who put me on his programme ‘21 day alkaline cleanse’. This is what was my first inspiration into the alkaline eating principles because I started to feel so much better. We then started to look at other practitioners and therapies and formed our own balanced eating plan based on this

Some of you have asked why I didn’t appear on the Horizon programme. When they approached me, they asked me to come and talk about my relationship with Robert Young. As I explained earlier I don’t have a relationship with him or ever had one. His book was simply one of several that influenced the direction we took our philosophy. I just believe in eating healthily. My publisher confirmed to the producers of the show that there was no connection between us, and that he had not been sent my book prior to publication.

Obviously everyone has a choice about what they eat. My ethos is centered around a basic belief that healthy eating is better than unhealthy eating. I find it odd that this view could be criticised. My belief of what Alkaline food is and always has been is that by eating ingredients that are ‘alkaline’ when digested the majority of the time you are helping to keep your body in a healthy state. However, we have always strongly promoted the 70/30 ethos which is only 70% of the time being healthy the rest doing what you like. This becomes a healthy balanced lifestyle.

In my view there is a connection between what you eat, and how you feel. I would simply like people to consider this when choosing what to eat. My recipes are suggestions I think they might like. Thousands of people have tried them and I will keep making them for as long I enjoy doing so.

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